Tabula Rasa: A Crime Novel of the Roman Empire

by Ruth Downie

  Ruso felt Tilla’s thigh press up against his own. He wanted to tell her not to worry. If they wanted to score points at his expense, he would put up with it. It was only one evening, and if these people were gullible enough to believe that he had been lured away from the sunny vineyards of southern Gaul by windswept grass and reedy bogs, nothing he said would change their minds.

  He waited for the next challenge, but instead Senecio said, “You have a good understanding of our tongue, healer. This is not usual in a foreigner.”

  Ruso put a hand on Tilla’s knee. Perhaps they really were clinging to each other for support. “I have a good teacher.”

  “That is as well. We do not speak Latin in this house.”

  “Never mind!” put in a cheery voice from the other end of the bench. “Now my mistress is here, she can teach you!”

  Tilla hissed, “Sh!” and Virana subsided with, “But I was only saying—”

  “Sh!”

  Ruso was fairly sure that there was a difference in British between We do not speak Latin and We cannot speak Latin. Perhaps Senecio too wanted to lay down some boundaries.

  Senecio handed his cup to Enica. As she poured the beer, he reached back and squeezed her thigh.

  This was unexpected. Either Ruso had made the wrong assumption about Enica and Conn, or he had at last found evidence of Julius Caesar’s assertion that the Britons shared their wives. Was that what very traditional meant? He hoped he wasn’t expected to share his own wife. Or, indeed, anyone else’s.

  Senecio took a gulp and held the cup out. Enica, whom Ruso no longer knew how to place, took it and brought it across to him. Ruso nodded his thanks. As he drank he could hear Virana whispering, “Why don’t they want to learn Latin?”

  Tilla murmured, “I think they already know some.”

  “Then why will they not speak it to the master?”

  It was Tilla’s turn with the beer. When the cup had gone back to the old man, Ruso heard, “Because they want to stay Corionotatae.”

  “But they are Corionotatae.”

  “They don’t want the children to forget where they come from.”

  “But how will they get by without—”

  Tilla’s “Sh!” almost covered the sound of Senecio’s announcement that it was time to eat and that their guest should be served first.

  Enica stepped forward again.

  Virana hauled herself up from the bench. “I’ll do it!”

  Enica paused, ladle in hand, and looked to the old man for instruction.

  Tilla seized Virana by the wrist. “Sit down!”

  “But you said I was to help!”

  “Enica will do it.”

  Virana pushed her hair out of her eyes and slumped back down. “I never know what helping I’m supposed to do and what other people are there for.”

  Moments later Enica had done her duty and Ruso had realized that she must be the old man’s wife, and Branan’s mother, and that was perhaps why she was less than thrilled at her husband inviting the daughter of his old flame to eat with them. By the time he had worked this out he found himself with his own beer and nursing a thick wooden bowl filled with stew at the temperature of molten lava.

  He had assumed the woman would go on to serve everyone else, but instead she served only Senecio and then stepped back. Senecio gestured to him to begin. Evidently the foreign guest was expected to eat first.

  Ruso glanced around. He had attended all manner of dinner parties, most of them reluctantly, but never before had he been expected to put on a display of eating for the rest of the diners. Tentatively, he licked the bottom of the spoon.

  A child’s voice declared, “He doesn’t like it.”

  Someone said, “Sh!”

  “Give him a chance!” hissed Branan.

  He glanced at Tilla. She made a small scooping motion with one hand. Was this some sort of a test? Tilla had urged him to eat. He must not let her down. He lifted the spoon again.

  There was a soft shuffle of feet and fabric as his audience shifted to get a better view, and he was struck by the thought that they might be trying to poison him.

  The edge of the spoon seemed cooler now.

  There was a brief moment between the tasting and the burning, a further brief moment in which he thought that a gulp of air would help, and then the pain in his mouth was gnawing its way down his throat and into his chest.

  “It’s very good!” he gasped. “Very—” He must have snatched at his beer, because much of it seemed to miss his mouth and course down his chin.

  “Very good!” he repeated, wondering if the Britons knew the story of the Roman prisoner who had died after being force-fed with molten gold.

  “He likes it!” declared someone.

  He saw smiling faces at last. The child who said, “He made a mess!” was ignored, and Enica busied herself serving everyone else. So he probably hadn’t been poisoned, then. But if he thought the difficult part was over, he was wrong. Senecio had been softening him up.

  “We hear, healer, that you are a friend of the emperor.”

  Gods above, how had that rumor reached the ears of an old man in a mud hut? It was the last thing Tilla would have told anyone, even if it were true. And it was the last thing he wanted these people to believe. Ruso emerged from another swig of beer and said, “Not exactly, sir. We have met.”

  “I have another fine and handsome son waiting for me in the next world, sent there by the emperor’s men during the troubles.”

  “I am sorry to hear that, sir,” said Ruso, who was not supposed to have seen the security report.

  “My family and I would like to know,” said Senecio, “why the emperor wants to build a wall across our land.”

  A list of possible answers scurried around Ruso’s mind and were chased away by the burning in his throat. The official reason, to separate the Romans from the barbarians, made no sense. There were barbarians on both sides, and army posts too. To collect customs tolls? To defend the land? To fix the limits of the empire? To give the troops something to do? To mark Hadrian’s footsteps in a province where a new city—his usual legacy—would be as useful as a straw spear? None of it sounded convincing in the face of a man who had lost a son and half his farm, and he certainly wasn’t going to repeat the common view amongst the men, who believed the wall was an admission that Britannia would never be fully brought under Roman control.

  “It is the fault of the Northerners,” put in Tilla. “If they stayed at home and kept their hands off other people and their property, there would be no need for a wall.”

  Senecio nodded. “Your family was a great loss to us all, child.” He turned to Ruso. “And you, do you think the great Emperor of Rome was troubled by the Northerners killing our people and stealing our cattle?”

  Ruso doubted that Hadrian was in the least bit troubled, but he was not going to say so. “If it stops the raiding, it will be a useful thing for everyone.”

  “Oh, it’ll stop that all right,” put in Conn. “It’ll stop farmers getting their animals to pasture, and families from visiting, and traders from going to market.”

  Ruso took another long swallow of beer while somebody said something he did not catch.

  “Gateways?” sneered Conn. “They’re miles apart!”

  Everyone wanted to join in now. The conversation shifted around the hearth, and Ruso had a few moments to finish his own drink and most of Tilla’s while trying to convince himself that his throat was not swelling shut. Around him there were complaints about the stream, which as far as he could make out had turned undrinkable lower down since the landslide and . . . something about the soldiers buying up all the food and damaging field walls and leaving gates open. Tilla was looking uncomfortable, and he wondered if they grumbled like this every evening or whether it was for his benefit. If it was, they needed to enunciate more clearly.

  The one-eyed man was complaining about a cart that the soldiers had borrowed and damaged.

  “You told us t
hey paid for that,” put in someone else.

  The one-eyed man said that was not the point. Ruso, struggling to maneuver a chunk of vegetable onto his spoon, was fairly certain he heard, “You said it was falling apart anyway.”

  Senecio stepped in. “As you see, my people are not slow to join an argument.”

  Ruso said, “I didn’t mean to start one.”

  The old man gave a dramatic sigh. “It is the tragedy of these islands. Our tribes saw Rome coming and, instead of uniting, the leaders fell to quarreling amongst themselves.”

  Ruso tried to form a facial expression that showed he was paying attention. He felt slightly detached from what was going on, but he was not drunk enough to offer opinions on the Britons.

  “So now,” Senecio said, “your people and ours must live side by side until Rome decides to go away again.”

  “Yes.” The old man must have been disappointed when the building started; it was clearer than ever now that his people were in for a long wait.

  Senecio said, “There should be no more killing.”

  “I agree.” Ruso raised his beer cup in approval, but the old man had not finished.

  “Marriages between our women and your men are not always successful.”

  Not sure how this was connected with killing, Ruso said, “My wife and I have known each other a long time.” He was still just about sober enough to censor whereas you only met her last week.

  Senecio raised his own cup. “Mara’s daughter has made her choice. Until your people leave our land, healer, we will look for ways to live together.”

  Ruso drank, relieved that he was safe here but hoping the old man did not imagine he was talking to someone with any power to agree to anything. Even the blankets and buckets that he had made the absent Candidus order had failed to turn up. He realized now how unimportant that was. The Legion seemed a long way away and curiously irrelevant. He could not remember why the emperor had bothered coming here in the first place. He understood completely why the Britons were baffled and irritated by the army’s interference. They should all stop quarreling. It was all remarkably simple. There was no need for fighting. They should respect each other. If they all gathered together around warm hearths to share peace and beer, there would be no need for a wall.

  As the murmur of conversation rose around him again, Tilla said, “You did well. He likes you.”

  “Good.” He wondered how long it would be before he could eat comfortably again.

  She scooped up a spoonful and drew back as it touched her lips. “Ach! This is still hot! Is this why you spilled the drink?”

  He said, “I didn’t want to spit it out.”

  “They would have thought you were rude,” she agreed. “Now they just think you are a man who is desperate for beer.”

  Chapter 7

  The meal had ended. People were moving about the house: men going out to fetch firewood and check the animals; women throwing down bedrolls in the shadows beyond the partitions and urging children to have one last drink, one last wee, and be sure to wash dirty hands and feet. At last Virana had the chance to get up and help, and had come back with the news that these people knew Cata, who was lucky her jaw was not broken, and that another girl had run away some time ago and nobody knew where she had gone.

  “That is what happens when you choose the wrong man,” Tilla told her. From behind one of the partitions she could hear the repeated whuf of someone punching a feather pillow into shape. The evening had gone better than she had feared. Her husband was on the far side of the fire listening to Senecio with the slightly cross look on his face that meant he was tired and having to concentrate to understand.

  Then Senecio was beckoning her over to join them, and that was when she spotted the Thing for the first time, and forgot all about long-suffering girlfriends.

  “I have been speaking with your man,” Senecio told her.

  “I am glad of it.” Tilla tried to not to stare at the Thing. It was stark and obvious now that it had slipped outside the cream wool of her husband’s best tunic.

  “He tells me you have not had your marriage blessed after the custom of our people.”

  “We were married in Gaul,” she explained. Perhaps the old man’s sky-blue eyes were dim. Perhaps he would think it was a bird. Then she remembered that he had recognized her across a crowded market.

  “And so far,” he was saying, “you have no children.”

  “There is plenty of time,” put in her husband. As if either of them believed that time would make a difference.

  She caught his eye and glanced down at the Thing, then back up again. A faint expression of puzzlement flitted across his face, but Senecio was speaking again and he turned back to pay attention.

  “I have been thinking,” Senecio continued, “that as an old friend of your mother and one who can remember your family, it would be a duty and an honor to offer that blessing.”

  Her husband took her hand and bowed. The wretched Thing dangled forward as if it were in flight, then landed back against his chest. “We are the ones who are honored, sir. Thank you.”

  If her hand had not been trapped in his, she might have reached up and dropped the Thing back inside his tunic. He could have worn something like that around the army base, but what sort of man arrived to meet his wife’s family friends for the first time with a model of a flying penis strung around his neck? She could imagine what fun Enica and the one with the lisp would have passing that on. She tried squeezing his hand, but he merely squeezed it back, his warm grip showing how pleased he was with the way he thought things were going.

  Senecio was speaking again. Something about the Samain festival and how many guests would be there to share the feast and the bonfires. “And there will be a full moon, which will bring you good fortune.”

  Her husband seemed confused. She explained again in slower British, hoping she had got it right. “He is offering to give us the blessing at the Samain feast, on the fourth night after this one.”

  Only afterward, when Senecio had limped off to his bed, did she find out why her husband had said, “Ah!” as if this was a surprise, and not an entirely pleasant one.

  “I thought that was it,” he said. “I thought that was the blessing. I didn’t realize he meant a whole ceremony.”

  How could he have imagined that was it? His understanding must be worse than she thought. “There will be singing and dancing and lots of food, and if we are lucky Senecio will make us a special poem, and there will be big bonfires because it is Samain.”

  “I’m not sure I want our marriage blessed on the night when the dead walk.”

  “When the walls between the living and the dead melt away,” she corrected him. “And you will enjoy it when you get there. Now, tell me. Where did you get that?”

  He glanced down in the direction of her accusing stare. “Oh, that! Somebody lent it to me.”

  He was wearing it specially. A winged penis. To meet his wife’s people.

  She would never understand Romans.

  “It’s supposed to bring good luck,” he said, as if that excused it. “That reminds me. There’s bad news about Valens’s father-in-law.”

  Chapter 8

  Ruso survived a night in a native bed, although without his native wife. It was something Tilla might have warned him about, but didn’t. She seemed to be annoyed about something. Instead he had been offered a bracken-stuffed mattress and some blankets behind the wicker partition that denoted the men’s area. Senecio did not join them.

  He had lain awake for what seemed like hours listening to sounds that might be rodents or might be Conn creeping across from one of the other beds to knife him where he lay.

  Where was his sword? What would he do if they didn’t give it back?

  He finally dropped off to sleep only to be woken by whispering from behind some other partition. This was followed by giggling and the unmistakeable sounds of sex. In a house with no proper rooms, everybody could hear everything that wen
t on.

  And on.

  He hoped the sounds were nothing to do with Virana. The sooner that wretched girl was handed back to her family, the happier he would be. Meanwhile he would be obliged to put up with the embarrassment of some enthusiastic native ceremony with the old man making up poems about them and everyone singing those interminable ancestor songs that Tilla used to sing in the kitchen at Deva to frighten the mice away. He rolled over on the lumpy bed and tried to go back to sleep, but the gasping and grunting was annoyingly out of time with the rhythm of Conn snoring, and then almost as soon as it was over a child started to cough.

  He considered getting up to find Tilla, but it was dark, he had no idea where she was, and besides, he suspected he was not entirely sober. He could hardly stumble around the house waking up sleeping bodies to find out which one he was married to, and it seemed Tilla had no plans to come and fetch him. Valens was right: No good came of mixing with the wife’s friends and relations.

  He woke feeling bleary and foolish. Nobody had attacked him in the night. Conn returned his sword as he left. Ruso dismissed the murmur of “I am no happier with this friendship than you are, Roman,” as an attempt to salvage some British pride. Whatever the son thought, he had the old man’s approval.

  Had he been feeling brighter on his walk back to the fort, he would have enjoyed the sound of the birds celebrating another sunny morning. He would have savored the smell of fresh bread from the ovens over in the ramparts. Unfortunately he felt more like the dead hen that was still lying on the desk.

  Pertinax was still alive. “No hemorrhage, no excessive swelling, no unexpected pain,” reported Valens. He was annoyingly cheerful, having persuaded the deputy to stay awake at the bedside while he himself just dropped in a couple of times to check that nothing more needed to be done. “He’s taken some poppy but he’s lucid enough to insult me.”

  “That’s good news.”

  “Hm.” Valens settled himself on the pharmacist’s table. “You look done in. Good night, then?”